At some point, the cable bill just becomes a joke. Not a funny one either. You’re paying for channels you’ve never once clicked on, and the sports package is somehow extra on top of that. The good news for many sports fans is that cutting it loose doesn’t mean losing your teams and favorite games anymore, and that used to genuinely be the fear.
Now, there are a lot of options for TV streaming, and there are also some platforms that are dedicated to sports channels, so that’s a win for sports enthusiasts. Now, here’s what you can do to watch sports even after cutting the cord.
1. Get an antenna first.
Seriously, before anything else. A digital antenna costs around around $20 to $50 at any electronics store and pulls in ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox completely free. No subscription, no monthly fee, nothing. Those four channels carry more live sports than most people realize.
A big chunk of the NFL regular season, the Super Bowl, college football bowl games, Masters coverage, NBA Finals games, and many more. Sadly, a lot of cord-cutters skip this step and end up paying for things they didn’t need to. Don’t do that.
2. Pick one main streaming service.
This is where most of the decision-making actually happens. The main options are YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu + Live TV, and fuboTV, and they don’t offer the same generic stuff.
YouTube TV is around $73 a month and has become the go-to for most sports households. ESPN is in there and its cloud DVR has no storage limit. FuboTV, on the other hand, is built specifically with sports as its primary content. It goes deep on soccer, golf, and international leagues that other platforms barely touch. Sling is the cheapest of the group but splits its channel bundle across two separate bases.
The smartest thing you can do is just pick one. Try it out, check if it fits your needs. If not, cancel it, then move on to the other one until you find the right service for you.
3. Buy league passes.
NFL Sunday Ticket is on YouTube now, which was a big thing for sports fans. Out-of-market NFL games used to require a DirecTV or DISH Network satellite dish on your roof. That’s no longer the case. NBA League Pass and MLB.TV covers out-of-market basketball and baseball respectively, and ESPN+ carries UFC, some NHL games, and a rotating pile of college sports.
The thing about all of these is the blackout rules. Any game that’s being broadcast locally or nationally gets blacked out on the league app. So these are really built for fans following a team from a different city, not for watching your local team on a Sunday afternoon.
4. Try out streaming sticks.
Most smart TVs nowadays already have the major streaming apps built in, but for anyone working with an older set, a streaming stick is the move. A Roku Streaming Stick or Amazon Fire Stick plugs straight into the HDMI port and runs everything from YouTube TV to ESPN+ without any complicated setup. They run between $30 and $50, take about ten minutes to get going, and honestly work just as well as anything built into a newer TV.
For most fans watching NFL, NBA, MLB, or college sports, an antenna plus one streaming service covers probably 90% of what's on the schedule. The monthly savings compared to a full cable package usually land somewhere between $60 and $100. There will occasionally be a game that requires a different app or an add-on, and that's just the reality of how fragmented the streaming landscape has gotten. But the idea that you need cable to follow sports? That stopped being true a while back.
